In a variety of different aerodynamic scenarios, airflows occurring over rotorcraft blades may become turbulent, and in some cases, may reduce the lift and increase drag characteristics of the rotorcraft blades. The alternation of these characteristics may result in reduced overall aerodynamic efficiency, as well as stability, lift characteristics and increased fuel consumption.
Previous techniques have addressed this issue by providing various types of active airflow control systems. However, these previous techniques typically involve mechanical, electromechanical, or pneumatic systems. Further, installing or retrofitting such systems may involve significant modification of the structure underlying the airfoil. Thus, these previous systems may be expensive to implement, in terms of cost and labor to install or retrofit onto existing airfoils.
In addition, some previous active airflow control systems incorporate several electrodes disposed along a single given dielectric. However, such systems may not efficiently utilize the surface area of an airfoil that would otherwise be available for generating plasma. For example, if the electrodes are located too close to one another, counterforces may form between adjacent electrodes. These counterforces may result in smaller, weaker clusters of plasma, which are less effective in generating bulk airflows.
To reduce the formation of these counterforces, these previous active airflow control systems may increase the distances between the electrodes along the single dielectric. However, these increased distances between electrodes may result in fewer plasma-generating units per unit of surface area on the airfoil. This decreased concentration of plasma-generating units, in turn, may reduce the efficiency of these previous airflow control systems in influencing bulk airflows.